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Washington, DC - Representatives Diana DeGette (D-CO), Louise Slaughter (D-NY), Barbara Lee (D-CO) and Jerrold Nadler (D-NY) today decried the anti-choice, anti-woman riders included in Fiscal Year 2018 appropriations bills attacking women’s health and reproductive rights. The House appropriations package is riddled with an unprecedented number of shameful anti-woman riders that go far beyond anything seen in previous proposals. DeGette and Slaughter co-chair the Congressional Pro-Choice Caucus, whose members include Lee, a senior member of the House Appropriations Committee, and Nadler, a senior member of the House Judiciary Committee. They were joined by fellow members of the Pro-Choice Caucus, whose support has been critical to passing every bill to fund the government since 2011.

“Virtually every week, women across the country are waking up to news that their rights and access to care are being stripped away by politicians at the state and federal levels,” DeGette noted. “This has got to stop. We will not tolerate any more anti-woman policies in government funding bills. The women of America are fed up, and we are standing by them to defend their rights.”

“The Republican Congress continues to take its attack on women’s health care rights to whole new levels. There is apparently no length Republicans in Congress and the Trump administration won’t go to try and roll back the progress we’ve made. These special provisions are a continuation of an agenda that includes reducing access to contraception, undermining Title X, expanding the Global Gag Rule, and much more. The women of America will not sit idly by as Republicans in Washington take these dangerous and unprecedented steps to dismantle the hard-fought progress so many have fought so hard for,” said Slaughter.

“Make no mistake: the anti-woman, anti-choice agenda proposed by Congressional Republicans is an all-out assault on women’s reproductive health and freedoms,” Lee said. “Congress has no business interfering in women’s personal health decisions. My Republican colleagues need to drop this dangerous crusade and stop trying to turn back the clock on women.”

“Republicans are not just attacking women’s constitutional rights, they are making it nearly impossible for women to access any reproductive health care at all,” said Nadler. “Their appropriations bills would allow employers, insurance companies, and health care providers to discriminate against women who seek reproductive health care by denying them coverage or even refusing them medical care. They would also deny Planned Parenthood any federal funding from any programs under the appropriations bills and completely gut funding from all family planning and teen pregnancy prevention programs. Enough is enough! We reject these endless attacks on women and will keep fighting to ensure that women keep the hard-won freedom that comes only with the ability to make their own health care decisions.”

Also speaking at the event were fellow members of the Pro-Choice Caucus Nita Lowey (D-NY), Jan Schakowsky (D-IL), Paul Tonko (D-NY) and Eleanor Holmes-Norton (D-DC).